Storyline, possible backstory

Hey guys, I said I'd have a thread up once I'd got a draft ready and here it is. I'm not a pro writer so don't complain about grammar please

I've posted it in here as I don't think the general forums are quite ready for this kind of stuff. Judging from the response I got from my vignette in the off topic area it'll just get picked to pieces with no constructive comments.

I had to explian why the cows were mutilated
I know it's daft but a bit of black humour in the game never hurt anyone To be honest I couldn't think of a good reason to include crop circles and cow mutilations.

I like backstories that explain why all the races in a the gallaxy are so similar are due to an older species seeding the galaxy and then evolution takes over in the intermediate years. I heard an estimate that with sub-light ships it would take 60 million years to colonize the Milky Way; a convenient number vis-a-vis the dinosaur extinction.

Anyway, so I'm gonna give this a go too.

Lets see . . . .

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I was toying with the idea of man being created by the aliens, but you did it justice in your story. I like the way you explained how the moon came into orbit, sent out as exterminatus due to a miscommuntication.

I also like the way you've tied in folk lore type myths and conspiracy theories together to explain cattle mutiliations and that not only one or two game's worth possible story are there. I'd say there's potential for maybe four or five related games to be pulled out of it.

Thanks! The illuminatus thing came to me right at the end. As for the crop circles, I just couldn't think of a good reason why the aliens would create them in the first place so came up with the explation that I did come up with.

I like backstories that explain why all the races in a the gallaxy are so similar are due to an older species seeding the galaxy and then evolution takes over in the intermediate years. I heard an estimate that with sub-light ships it would take 60 million years to colonize the Milky Way; a convenient number vis-a-vis the dinosaur extinction.

I've read both of the stories and it seams that they both seem to run around the same topc, psycic(or however you spell it) races spreading around the universe or creating the other aliens. But if you look at the original X-Com they actully want other countries to join them so their purpose wasnt really to wipe out humanity(unless you lost the game). So how bout this "Federation" for lack of a better name, of planets and races found earth and saw that we were within centuries of Faster Then Light travel. It was seen that most races that developed FTL travel usually destroyed themselves or became raiders and a back mark on the universe. So the scout post of Cydonia(becuase it had lots of Elerium-115) sent messages to Earth over the years to inform them that they wanted humanity to join their federation, but ofcourse we diddnt have the technology to recieve these messages, or thought that these were pranks we ignored or replied no, this ment that the federation was preparing to extermenate this threat to peace in the universe.

I've read both of the stories and it seams that they both seem to run around the same topc, psycic(or however you spell it) races spreading around the universe or creating the other aliens. But if you look at the original X-Com they actully want other countries to join them so their purpose wasnt really to wipe out humanity(unless you lost the game). So how bout this "Federation" for lack of a better name, of planets and races found earth and saw that we were within centuries of Faster Then Light travel. It was seen that most races that developed FTL travel usually destroyed themselves or became raiders and a back mark on the universe. So the scout post of Cydonia(becuase it had lots of Elerium-115) sent messages to Earth over the years to inform them that they wanted humanity to join their federation, but ofcourse we diddnt have the technology to recieve these messages, or thought that these were pranks we ignored or replied no, this ment that the federation was preparing to extermenate this threat to peace in the universe.

It's a bit star trek isn't it? I deliberately stayed away from both the original game and any other IP works as it complicates things.

We should keep it general actully. How bout aliens attack Earth, we can never find out why becuase the soldiers, even the commanders dont know why, they are just fanatics fighting for their masters. And humans who support them also fight us...... a X-com Apocalypse story line basicly.

We should keep it general actully. How bout aliens attack Earth, we can never find out why becuase the soldiers, even the commanders dont know why, they are just fanatics fighting for their masters. And humans who support them also fight us...... a X-com Apocalypse story line basicly.

P.S. If anyone does know the story for Apoc, Email me.

As I recall there wasn't much of information gathered from Aliens. Only quite valuable things for storyline were ones about alien missions, but even there wasn't much of alien origin. All what you can learn from aliens is: They're on mars. They're on Cydonia. They're going to kill you. You must kill 'em first.

Hi, all. I wasn't sure exactly how I could best contribute to Xenocide, or what's already been done...so I just decided to write some ideas down. I envision this as being in a manual. Of course, it's not like I know what I'm doing, this is just intended to throw out some ideas. All or none of this could eventually be used...At the very worst I envision you guys saying "Sorry, we already decided to do it a different way in one of the forum topics you didn't read". And hey, that's okay. I enjoy writing anyway, so it's no big loss. One major thing I did was think up an acronym to replace "X-COM", so you might want to look at that at least.

Just replace this extract in the THE SEDALIA INCIDENT:
In the ensuing firefight, 6 policemen were killed and
4 more wounded, while the Guardsmen sustained 3 fatalities and 8 injuries.
with
In the ensuing firefight, six policemen were killed and several was wounded.
The Guardsmen lost three men and more than twice that number were injuried.

Numbers under 12 is better to write out in text, atleast that is what I have been taught .

Hi, all. I wasn't sure exactly how I could best contribute to Xenocide, or what's already been done...so I just decided to write some ideas down. I envision this as being in a manual. Of course, it's not like I know what I'm doing, this is just intended to throw out some ideas. All or none of this could eventually be used...At the very worst I envision you guys saying "Sorry, we already decided to do it a different way in one of the forum topics you didn't read". And hey, that's okay. I enjoy writing anyway, so it's no big loss. One major thing I did was think up an acronym to replace "X-COM", so you might want to look at that at least.

So, without further ado...The Alien War! First draft.

So is that "unremarkable" town in Missouri by any chance YOUR home town? If we're gonna throw names around for the organization I'll throw in

The story looks very good. The one thing that doesn't sit right in my opinion is the term XERO . What about XENO, the N stands for Neutralization. Xenoincursion Emergency Neutralization Organization. Ties into Xenocide a lot easier at least.

I have always liked the idea of small parts of a story being told during the game, maybe giving little hints of explinations through interrogation of aliens would be a good idea. That way the game keeps a certain mysticism about it, and expands the story to take a different direction from X-Com ( hence stopping any legal complications )

The aliens could be galactic farmers of sorts. They seeded this planet X number of years ago and left it to develop on its own, and have returned now to harvest whatever it is they need. Thus the abductions, animal mutilations, etc. are for harvesting exotic (to them) things they can't grow on their own. Consider the great lengths some people go to when searching for wild Orchids, they'll climb up remote mountains looking for one plant. For the aliens and their tech, this might not be much different. Crop circles could be alien code to help coordinate what they're 'picking' from their 'farm'. I have some friends who are true UFO believers, and focus a lot of time and energy into UFO research and the like. Supposedly, real crop circles have distinct microwave radiation properties, the nodes in crop circle corn stalks for example have exploded from overheating due to microwave radiation. Crops grown from such irradiated seed have much better output. The microwave effects are supposedly from the propulsion system of the UFO, but it could also be some sort of signalling that alien sensors can pick up from low orbit. That's why you pick them up in the atmosphere as they fly around for thousands of miles before finally landing, they're reading these signatures left by previous visits to find a suitable landing site for their next 'harvest'. Otherwise, they could come out of orbit where they know there's life forms, and land in a few minutes.

If people are interested in some of these theories, I'm sure I could coax some more detailed info or web links from my friends that our writers could expand on.

Why not...
The aliens were once part of powerfull alien expedition from other galaxy.But due to some accident (hit by a metheor?) their mothership crashed on Mars and broke it's dehybernation chambers and the aliens stood frozen for a millenia...
...until, thousends of years later, a signal from the neighboring planet called "Earth" to one of it's probes (Voyager?) activated the motherships computers...now the aliens can continue their mission to conquer the Earth!
Oh and the aliens wanted to conquer the Earth because it's water based planets and the aliens need water because their planet was "dying".But why would the remnants of the expedition want to conquer Earth when without water their species had already died?Two reasons-because they still have the numbers to reproduce and "remake" it, and because they don't remember that they were frozen for thousents of years...

Yeah, if their instruments were damaged during the crash, they wouldn't know what the year is. Another thought could be that early scouts had found this planet thousands of years ago, which would tie in the mythology aspect of the aliens, and the scouts returned home with their data. So this ship was sent back to colonize the planet, but crashed on its way. Now it's trying to fulfill its goal, as the ship is full of 'colonists' in a sense. Each alien was sent for different roles for the colony, that would explain why they are all together.

Or we could tie in the South Park version of earth, the planet is just a reality tv show for the universe...

Something else could be that the aliens arrived at Mars millions of years ago and built a base there when the planet still had water and atmosphere, etc. It's reasonable to think that the sun burned hotter and brighter earlier in its life, and mars could have supported life. The mars base operated for whatever reason for many years, but as the sun cooled, it became impossible to sustain life on mars. Maybe there was some major disaster that set things in motion quickly. It became apparent that the mars base would not last, but earth was showing good progress at developing life and becoming the next base. So most of the aliens return to their homeworld, leaving a group in stasis to wait for earth to finish developing into a useable resource.

Here are comments that were brought up in an off topic thread, copied here for record keeping. They are from several different posts, so the ideas will jump around a little:

You know that would be great on the backstory.

"That was the first clue that something bigger was wrong, satellite-based systems, so beloved of the Military experts, started failing. One by one the birds fell silent, weapons platforms, communications, radar, all snuffed out, leaving the world blind, deaf and dumb

The last picture from the Hubble space telescope was of a grey shadow looming over the sun, a hideous eclipse, a dark omen.

Mankind's dependance high technology, the trust in our scientific strength, was exposed as our greatest weakness. We were virtually helpless when they came..."

I really like the idea of the satellites falling, it was my concern with a satellite tracking system. Aliens could shoot them all down in a day without resistence. The loss of most long range communications would occur, another reason why x-corps is created as a centralized defence force with specialized radar systems.

then again taht is why the star wars program was developed.. in case of alien incursions and missile defense from other countries. basically satelites were used to deflect lasers to their intended targets, they each had there own laser and defense system capable to take down most craft, alien or terran.

I like that. The Star Wars policy is a response to the Rosswell legacy. Sold to the public as a missile defence system, but really there to stop the aliens.

that is correct, sadly in real world, the Star Wars program was "cancelled". hehe.... there are a few that say this isn't so... that Aliens due exist and still posess a real threat to our society and have begun to reactivate the system under black budget operations...

I have a theory that goes something like this.
Someone who is going to be recruited gets "abducted" or sent out on a solo mission then picked up. He or she is given a quick medical, and is shown all the evidence of alien incursion and they have some time to decide.
If they decide to join then they go MIA, or KIA or just plain dissappear from the real world. If they decide 'no' then they get a dose of a powerful rohypnol variant, and wake up in the woods with an almightly hangover and vague memories of abduction, and experimentation and UFOs.

about satelites failing.......this could be the same thing that happened at NASAS mars probes

"Aliens shooting it from mars....? No way.....erh......we just screwed up navigation....yeah, that right! navigation! You know, centimeters, and inches..."

After Roswell, the black projects thought they had caught the aliens off guard as the alien abductions stopped for a while. Until we went to the moon. Apollo 11 and 12 landed normally but the alien caught wind of the 13th launch and tried to put a stop to it. They almost suceeded. Records were doctored and acounts falsified and officially it was an accident. But some know the truth behind Apollo 13's real mission.

The following Moon missions had their objectives changed, hence the moon rover with it's 'scientific' equipment and greater range. The secret projects leaders were looking for the aliens base of operations.

Heh, if we're not careful we'll be getting visits from the black helicopters

We should get this stuff up on the xenocide website as a pre story. The history of project xenocide

I'm taking all the story ideas to date and working them together into a more complete storyline. I'll try to use as many of the various ideas as I can. I'll get the info from other threads as well for this. If someone else is already doing this, PM me and I'll stop. No reason to duplicate effort. Once I'm done I'll post it in a new thread, and we can look at areas that need refinement or fleshing out.

I'm taking all the story ideas to date and working them together into a more complete storyline. I'll try to use as many of the various ideas as I can. I'll get the info from other threads as well for this. If someone else is already doing this, PM me and I'll stop. No reason to duplicate effort. Once I'm done I'll post it in a new thread, and we can look at areas that need refinement or fleshing out.

I'm working through the various ideas presented so far for storyline, and the attached file is a long-winded part one. It details the origins of the aliens as earth based. Ammonites (Ethereals) are based on a subclass of extinct cephalopods, the story ties in the iridescent sheen effect that alien materials will have, as well as the creation of amphibians and dinosaurs, their mass extinction, and a second moon! Next will be their journies out in space, part three will be their return and the Mars base info.

If there are any details people would like added or removed, let me know.

For part two of the story, there are two main ideas. Either the various aliens evolve from the same species or are genetically engineered, or they are from seperate lines that fight each other and are eventually subjugated prior to returning to earth. I'm leaning towards each race starting as the same one which evolves on different planets, and they eventually hook back up. The overmind species gets them and sends them back to earth. Any preferences?

Here's the rough draft of the middle part of the story. It has the various alien races in it. Each race has the original and then the proposed new name bolded. The names were created from a variety of sources, including team suggestions, mythology, and scientific names. The storyline allows for more bad guys to be sent, and any combination could be used based on the nature of the alien designs described. The Silacoid doesn't have a new name yet, it's getting late and I need some sleep first.

Any suggestions on that or changes/suggestions for the story so far, let me know. Tomorrow I'll start on the next chapter.

First, I may be a little rusty on my X-COM backstory, but who exactly are the Overmind? Are they mentioned in the games at all? It doesn't matter if they aren't, I just want to get it straight in my own mind. ;

Second...you know, of course, that the Silicoids make a cameo appearance from the Master of Orion series? You could say something about them "coming from another galaxy", if you wanted.

Third, I'm a little confused about the purpose of this document itself. If you want it to be used as just a backstory document, for the other writers to refer to, then I think it's perfect. However, if you want it to appear in the game in some form (revealed in bits after you research/interrogate live aliens, maybe?), then it needs some more. A lot of information is crammed in, without that much narrative to support it. So, as a piece of fiction, it needs a little work. But I think the ideas are sound.

One last thing; I think it would be cool if all the species evolved independently before being taken over by the Overmind...who then genetically engineered them to increase their suitability for various tasks. I think that's more interesting than one species simply creating other species for their own purposes.

Oh, and I like the whole thing about humans being created by the Ammonites. Very Mountains of Madness-ish.

My intent was for this to be the general storyline doc, just pulling the various ideas together into a cohesive thread. I agree that it would have more details in the game.

The Overmind was based on the book Childhood's End. It was a great collection of mental energy IIRC, that human being eventually merged with. I just liked the name really. But isn't there a big brain that you defeat on Mars at the end of the game? I thought it would be one of the Overmind, sent to collect the humans.

I guess the story needs some tweaking, I didn't mean that the various species are created from one, but that the Overmind had taken control of different races and was tweaking them for its own purposes. The Ammonites show up and they are also taken over and added to the stock. The floaters were created, as they're too much cyborg to be natural IMO.

Here is the complete storyline so far, including part 3. It still needs some work, and lots of fleshing out as suggested. I can add suggestions you make back into the doc and repost it to this link I think, so we don't have 20 copies of the same thing...

Some major things missing that stand out are names for planets/systems/galaxies out there, and various parts I bolded. Also a name for the Silacoids, I doubt my temporary name will stick.

Attached Files

Just been having a look around the Seti@home site and they've got a new section for signal candidates. I was looking around it for the link to the freebie star map program Distant suns

Ok so it's an older version and doesn't have all the bells and whistles of the new stuff but my original thought was that you could use this for a reference for stellar names. I came across the signal candidate section and an idea struck, why not use seti as a part of the storyline. Maybe one of the candidates turned out to be a proper signal?

We could tie that into the messages sent back and forth from Mars, when the response comes back that the Overmind should take control ASAP, SETI is scanning that area and also receives the message. It confirms that there's life out there, so we increase our efforts to detect more evidence, which leads to shooting down the UFO. Only after that do we successfully decode the overheard message, and we learn the aliens are coming to get us. But we still don't know where the base is, etc. The message could be decoded only after capturing an alien leader too, then we learn the code, etc.

I'll post a detailed critique when i get out of school; my basic point right now is that i see a heavy starcraft influence (whether intended or not) in the storyline. (if you don't see it take a look at the zerg and xel'naga backstories) I don't know if there is anything we can do about that, but I'll rack my brain a bit to see if we can evolve the story even more. It's lookin good though.

Sounds cool. You did an excellent job setting up the X-com universe, and the parts played by the Ammonites was great. Definitely something to draw on for alien descriptions & such, anyway.

I don't know if Silacoids are from Master of Orion. I think that's one of those sci-fi names like "Terran" that has been rediscovered and reused several times. That's my theory.

All that said, I think you should be wary of overdeveloping the storyline. Part of the beauty of the original was that the aliens weren't from alpha centauri, or anything, but from Mars. And they liked to mutilate cattle, and eat people, and stuff. Have you seen Invader Zim? That's about the intellectual level of the aliens of X-com, as I see it. Foolish, stinky, corn-eating humans! Feel my searing wrath! A-hahahahahaha!

But that's just my opinion. You're the one who actually took the time to write out a full storyline, which I have to say is pretty freaking cool, so kudos.

P.S. Yes, there was an Overmind, or something similarly named, in UFO Defense. I distinctly remember savoring the day when I got to pile all of my explosives onto that big, juicy martian brain...thing, and watch it go off like a christmas tree that has a bunch of explosives piled onto it.